Students’ work commended at international design competition

Tuesday 30 June 2015

​​Two students at the University of Northampton have had their work commended at this year’s YCN Student Awards.

Launched in 2001, the awards seek to recognise emerging creative excellence. From leading universities, colleges and art and design schools within Europe and North America. The YCN Student Awards are based around collections of live creative briefs, written each year by diverse partnering organisations, and is open to current students those who have graduated in the last 12 months.

Third year BA (Hons) Graphic Communications student, Amba Smith, was tasked with delivering a creative resource for global charity, Save the Children’s UK-wide campaign that will inspire and motivate dads to read to their children for 10 minutes a day.

Anthony Hailes, who is in the final year of the BA (Hons) Illustration course, was set a brief by book publishers, Pan Macmillan, to create a new cover and up to two wondrous interior page illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.​​

Trevor Brown, Senior Lecturer in Graphic Communication at the University of Northampton, commented: “YCN is an international design competition where some of the biggest brands, charities and product companies set creative briefs for undergraduate students across Europe.

“The briefs are often challenging, not only in the production of exciting and innovative design responses to the problems set, but also requires the students to really engage, research and empathise with the ethical, social and cultural implications of the work and to effectively and inspirationally communicate with the relevant audiences. To achieve two commendations this year, one from our Graphic Communication course and one from our Illustration course is a testament to the University’s goal of providing the students with not only real industry experience, but also the opportunity to win rec​​ognised design awards that will aid their entry into the creative industries after they graduate.”